I'm trying to start grouping information about Linux 802.11n support.
Work is underway on integrating 802.11n support onto mac80211 now
thanks to Intel's efforts. Besides that we will still then need
specific driver support. Unfortunately most hardware requires reverse
engineering efforts at the moment. In review it seems our best options
for support for Linux so far seems to be Intel and Ralink as the
vendor has provided support. Kudos to them!!! Let me review some
options we have, I'll post this on the wiki after recompiling some
more information. If you can help fill in the gaps that'd be greatly
appreciated.
---------------------
Requires reverse engineering efforts:
* Atheros
I believe we can get the card at least to work in compatibility mode
with a bit of effort in ath5k. Nick told he had some EEPROM info but
the baseband MAC is completely different and I think the radios are
too. The 802.11n specific stuff will be a challenge though as we'd
need to figure out how to enable 802.11n on MadWifi first. Support for
802.11n with MadWifi may come in the future. It seems the HAL already
may have support for it. MadWifi's net80211 stack doesn't seem to yet
have High Throughput support but FreeBSD's net80211 stack does seem to
have it though. It may be worth to just try to move cook up a new
driver to use the HAL with mac80211 now that we know what the HAL may
be doing more. Whatever will help us reverse engineer more.
I have a PCI AR5416 and will poke at it. Hardware can be readily found
- D-Link DWA-552 worked for us. This is a PCI card. Not sure what
other form factors this comes in.
* Broadcom - not sure how common this hardware is, not sure what form
factors these come in, and not sure what the driver progress is.
* Airgo
Driver: http://git.sipsolutions.net/agnx.git
Specs: http://airgo.wdwconsulting.net/mymoin
Devices: Beklin F5d8010, Netgear wgm511, wgm124, linksys wrt54gx,
Netgear Wpnt511
agnx driver can TX/RX for AGN100 devices for PCI devices. Cardbus card
not working for some reason. We'll try to help with this driver.
Cardbus card:
http://www.zipzoomfly.com/jsp/ProductDetail.jsp?ProductCode=251852
You can pull out AGN100 MiniPCI cards from these APs:
http://www.google.com/products?q=linksys+WRT54GX&btnG=Search+Products
http://www.google.com/products?q=BELKIN+F5d8230&btnG=Search+Products
If you want to try to add AGN300 support you can try getting this AP
and pulling its card out:
http://www.google.com/products?q=WPNT511&btnG=Search&show=dd
------------------
Vendor supported drivers:
Intel:
iwl4965 - Kudos to Intel for their support!!! Work is on the way to
integrate proper 802.11n work with mac80211. This is perhaps our best
supported device. I am only aware of PCI-express cards and PCI Express
Half Mini Card form factor. I don't think there are any miniPCI cards
out there.
* Ralink
I'd like to give Ralink kudos for their support for Linux. Thank you
Ralink!!! They have provided a vendor GPL driver which needs to get
ported to mac80211. This driver now needs to be ported to mac80211 but
rt2x00 guys have been busy on focusing more on the stability of
current rt2x00 drivers. The driver effort could use some help. It
should be integrated with the rest of the rt2x00 driver effort if
possible. MiniPCI cards are mostly only found on the laptops already
shipped. You can also try to get some through Martin's minipci.biz.
Other form factors I think exist are Cardbus and PCI. Not too sure
what other form factors are available.
Other possible devices Ralink devices which may work with this driver
(not confirmed):
http://www.greennet.ca/shop/product_info.php?ref=3¤cy=USD&products_id=15517
Vendor driver: http://www.ralinktech.com.tw/data/drivers/2007_0821_RT2860_Linux_STA_v1.3.0.0.tgz
Ralink 802.11n (RT2770F) also is shipped with the cool Asus
motherboard that has Splashtop:
http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=869&num=5
-------------
Not too sure what's up with these vendors. Anyone have any information?
* Realtek
I can't find anything.
* Marvel
All I have found is that they do have 802.11n solutions (TopDog):
http://www.marvell.com/products/wireless/topdog.jsp
* Conexant:
The best I can find is that they are "developing 802.11n solutions for
high-performance, embedded applications":
http://www.conexant.com/products/entry.jsp?id=30
and "Conexant tells Light Reading it integrated Atheros's 802.11n
technology into its own VDSL2-gateway chips four months ago. It's just
that Conexant never formally announced this."
http://www.lightreading.com/document.asp?doc_id=130123
If any of you have further information about other vendors or any of
the above please provide some details.
Luis
On Wed, 2007-11-14 at 13:58 -0500, Luis R. Rodriguez wrote:
> * Marvel
>
> All I have found is that they do have 802.11n solutions (TopDog):
>
> http://www.marvell.com/products/wireless/topdog.jsp
If you are willing to sign an NDA, Marvell could probably send off the
documentation and samples for TopDog. Linville has specs & hardware,
and even has a git tree, but obviously hasn't had time to look much
further into it.
http://git.kernel.org/?p=linux/kernel/git/linville/marvell.git;a=summary
My take: rewrite the driver from the ground up against mac80211. Don't
use the vendor driver, but use it as a guide.
Dan
On Wed, 14 Nov 2007, Luis R. Rodriguez wrote:
> * Airgo
>
> Driver: http://git.sipsolutions.net/agnx.git
> Specs: http://airgo.wdwconsulting.net/mymoin
> Devices: Beklin F5d8010, Netgear wgm511, wgm124, linksys wrt54gx,
> Netgear Wpnt511
Also the linksys wap54gx, wrt54gx2, and wrt54gx4, the netgear wpnt834,
asus wl566gm, belkin f5d8230-4, buffalo wzr-g108 all have either AGN100s
or AGN300s
>
> agnx driver can TX/RX for AGN100 devices for PCI devices. Cardbus card
> not working for some reason. We'll try to help with this driver.
>
Any help from anyone will be much appreciated!
> Cardbus card:
>
> http://www.zipzoomfly.com/jsp/ProductDetail.jsp?ProductCode=251852
>
> You can pull out AGN100 MiniPCI cards from these APs:
>
> http://www.google.com/products?q=linksys+WRT54GX&btnG=Search+Products
> http://www.google.com/products?q=BELKIN+F5d8230&btnG=Search+Products
>
> If you want to try to add AGN300 support you can try getting this AP
> and pulling its card out:
>
> http://www.google.com/products?q=WPNT511&btnG=Search&show=dd
>
There are currently no Airgo wifi cards that support 802.11n that I am
aware of. Certainly none that are vendor supported at this time. I know
that Airgo is one of the Draft members, but I don't think they've
released any cards for the draft 802.11n.
Jeff
On Nov 14, 2007 2:33 PM, Jeff Williams <[email protected]> wrote:
> There are currently no Airgo wifi cards that support 802.11n that I am
> aware of. Certainly none that are vendor supported at this time. I know
> that Airgo is one of the Draft members, but I don't think they've
> released any cards for the draft 802.11n.
I'm confused, I thought the above are 802.11n cards?
Luis
On Nov 15, 2007 4:00 AM, Jeff Williams <[email protected]> wrote:
>
>
> On Wed, 14 Nov 2007, Luis R. Rodriguez wrote:
>
> > On Nov 14, 2007 2:33 PM, Jeff Williams <[email protected]> wrote:
> >
> Also the linksys wap54gx, wrt54gx2, and wrt54gx4, the netgear wpnt834,
> asus wl566gm, belkin f5d8230-4, buffalo wzr-g108 all have either AGN100s
> or AGN300s
>
And Linksys WPC511GX , Buffalo WLI-CB-G108, AeroGuard AGN1023PC
Planex CQW-NS108AG, Planex CQW-NS108G, Samsung X20 Laptop
GemTek WPCO-131G, Corega CG-WLCB108GM (CMIIW)
> >> There are currently no Airgo wifi cards that support 802.11n that I am
> >> aware of. Certainly none that are vendor supported at this time. I know
> >> that Airgo is one of the Draft members, but I don't think they've
> >> released any cards for the draft 802.11n.
> >
> > I'm confused, I thought the above are 802.11n cards?
>
> Technically, Belkin and Netgear branded the AGN100 as Pre-N, but they were
> designed and released prior to the Draft 1.0 Spec. In fact, Airgo has
> declaimed the two released Drafts.
>
As Jeff said, they are Pre-N card and don't make sure compatible with 802.11n.
There is no any 802.11n support in the currently driver so far.
> As far as no chipsets for Draft N 2.0, I stand corrected. It appears as
> though Qualcomm (who bought Airgo in 2006) has released the AGN400
> http://www.qualcomm.com/press/releases/2006/061203_availability_worlds_first.html
> though I can't find any products that use it. If anyone does, I would be
> greatly interested in buying one!
>
It seemed there is no AGN400 based card in market. If anyone knows, I
also be very interesting. :)
Li YanBo
Luis R. Rodriguez <[email protected]> writes:
> Intel:
>
> iwl4965 - Kudos to Intel for their support!!! Work is on the way to
> integrate proper 802.11n work with mac80211. This is perhaps our best
> supported device. I am only aware of PCI-express cards and PCI Express
> Half Mini Card form factor. I don't think there are any miniPCI cards
> out there.
Are there any PC Cards available with iwl3945 or iwl4965 chipsets? My
IBM test laptop only has ipw2100 and most probably the BIOS refuse to
start if I switch the miniPCI card on the laptop :/
> * Conexant:
>
> The best I can find is that they are "developing 802.11n solutions for
> high-performance, embedded applications":
>
> http://www.conexant.com/products/entry.jsp?id=30
>
> and "Conexant tells Light Reading it integrated Atheros's 802.11n
> technology into its own VDSL2-gateway chips four months ago. It's just
> that Conexant never formally announced this."
>
> http://www.lightreading.com/document.asp?doc_id=130123
Are you aware of this:
"Still trying to slim down, chip firm Conexant Systems Inc. (Nasdaq:
CNXT) is halting new development of wireless LAN chips and laying off
140."
http://www.lightreading.com/document.asp?doc_id=138036&f_src=lightreading_gnews
--
Kalle Valo
On Wed, 14 Nov 2007, Luis R. Rodriguez wrote:
> On Nov 14, 2007 2:33 PM, Jeff Williams <[email protected]> wrote:
>
>> There are currently no Airgo wifi cards that support 802.11n that I am
>> aware of. Certainly none that are vendor supported at this time. I know
>> that Airgo is one of the Draft members, but I don't think they've
>> released any cards for the draft 802.11n.
>
> I'm confused, I thought the above are 802.11n cards?
Technically, Belkin and Netgear branded the AGN100 as Pre-N, but they were
designed and released prior to the Draft 1.0 Spec. In fact, Airgo has
declaimed the two released Drafts.
As far as no chipsets for Draft N 2.0, I stand corrected. It appears as
though Qualcomm (who bought Airgo in 2006) has released the AGN400
http://www.qualcomm.com/press/releases/2006/061203_availability_worlds_first.html
though I can't find any products that use it. If anyone does, I would be
greatly interested in buying one!
Jeff Williams